


The Life and Death of a Prince

by ShadetoShade



Category: A Hat in Time (Video Game)
Genre: Character Death, Gen, all kinds of headcanon up in here, and also royalty has drama, but uh it's part of his backstory, i mean he eats souls, though there's other death too
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-12
Updated: 2019-01-03
Packaged: 2019-09-16 18:08:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16958949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadetoShade/pseuds/ShadetoShade
Summary: Life hasn't been kind to him, but at least death has had its upsides.  An exploration of Snatcher from his time as prince to the end of A Hat in Time.





	1. Childhood

He’s six when screams erupt from the halls, and he dives behind one of the artfully tended potted plants nearby, covering his mouth with his hands to stop his giggles from being heard. A skunk runs right past him, just as panicked and confused as the servants, and Avery wonders how many people have been sprayed so far.

He’s a genius, he thinks, and a prank master, having snuck all five skunks into the castle walls without anyone noticing, even if it means he has to take a bath in tomatoes for the rest of his life.

Unfortunately, only moments after he puffs himself up and basks in his own praise, he hears footsteps down the hall growing closer and closer, quicker and quicker, and when the shadow of his mother falls over him he knows he’s been caught.

Still worth it.

*****

He’s nine, and the secret passages and hidden hallways of the castle have become a home within a home. He knows there are more out there, but he’s pretty sure he’s found some that not even the people who have been here since the beginning of time (or however old the geezers are supposed to be) know about. All it takes is just the right amount of wheedling of his history tutor, just a _tiny_ bit of extra feigned interest in the building of the castle itself, and he’s got more notes and places to explore than any normal kid would know what to do with.

Lucky for him, he’s not a normal kid.

He doesn’t even need a candle to light his way to the servants’ quarters, having memorized the path long ago. It doesn’t stop him from needing to feel the cool stone walls or make him any less likely to trip over his own feet, but he manages at least _twice_ as good as he did the last time he tried to go through without a candle and that’s more than enough reason to label this infiltration a success.

And that’s good because that means he still has water left in the bowl he’s carrying.

He can’t wait to hear who peed their pants in the morning.

*****

He’s eleven when he finally starts paying more attention to his tutors’ lessons. It wasn’t that he didn’t think the subjects were interesting, but before he always had something he would have rather been doing. He still does, of course. Who has time to sit around listening to old men and women drone on and on and on about stuff he doesn’t care about? But ever since he’s started using the passages in the castle to sneak into the library to read, he’s learned that he’s actually interested in some of the subjects.

There’s something fascinating about astronomy and astrology, the vastness of space and the way the stars shine, how different constellations can tell your fortune, how something like the moon can influence the tides and human emotion. There are rocks that can fall and obliterate you in an instant and big, floating worlds like marbles but with _rings_ around them in every color of the rainbow.

And there are books about the world--picture books, with the Great Desert and the Arctic, mountains and valleys, and even some little island town way, way far away from home. And books about magic and the Trinity Towers, books about how the world changed from a single guy saying some other guy was guilty or innocent, books about how to do this and that and some other thing and honestly Avery is pretty sure you could find out the secrets of the universe if you spent a long enough time in the library. And even after you read every secret it had to offer there was still a whole ‘nother world of fiction and fantasy to get sucked into that was just as interesting as anything the real world had to offer.

If it’s interesting on paper, then maybe these old fogeys are saying something worthwhile after all.

*****

He’s twelve when his mother draws her last breath.

She’s been sick for months, wasting away, and even though Avery knows in his head who the grey, too-thin woman before him is, his heart doesn’t want to accept it. His mother is fire and passion, the one who taught him everything his tutors didn’t, who told him about the pranks she herself had played in her youth, the one who hummed lullabies out of tune with his father in order to help him sleep. This woman is cold, her eyes like glass, her cheeks sunken and hollow. She will never sing for anyone.

His eyes burn and his heart twists. There’s something large lodged in his throat, heavy enough that he can’t even speak. Even so, he waits to cry until he’s alone in his room late, late at night, long after everyone in the castle has gone to bed. It seemed important at the time to wait--imperative. He needs to be strong, to hold his head high and face forward, shoulders squared.

Most importantly, he needs to keep what he knows to himself. If not, they may give him her “medicine” next.

*****

He’s thirteen when it finally clicks why his mother had to die.

She didn’t, of course, but the logic of her killers has become clear as day.

His father never had much of a spine to begin with. He was the head of state, but he always preferred to leave politics in the hands of others--more specifically, the nobles who had killed his mother: the one who would argue with them. The one who would tell them just where they could stick their foolish opinions. She was against them. An obstacle. And so she had to go. The better to get back to their marionette and pull at his strings.

His father is nothing more than a puppet to them. He isn’t a ruler. He’s hardly a man. And though his father has shown Avery nothing but love, even though there’s no way the King could possibly have known about the bottle, the young prince can’t help but swallow down bile when he’s around his father for long.

He won’t be that way, Avery decides. Not now. Not ever.

He will never be anyone’s puppet.

**Never.**


	2. Fragments of Before

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Prince grows into a fine young man.

The trees shiver in the chill autumn wind, breaking the quiet of night with the shuffling, rattling noise of brittle leaves shaking loose to dance on the breeze. It seems to echo through the alleyways, punctuated only by the slap of feet against a dirt road and the metallic clatter of brush in an empty paint can.

The masked child fancies himself a secret agent or a ninja, the perfect soldier in their elite squad: a rebel group drawn together to fight against the candy-hoarding masses of the elite. Despite his best efforts, his burlap cloak and threadbare tunic bear the stains of his work. He’ll have to burn them when they’re done with their work, no doubt.

“Agent X” (Jamie to his friends) nearly trips over his feet then comes sliding to a stop in the Misfits’ home base, kicking up a cloud of dust behind him and nearly careening into the Community Leaf Pile. “Mission accomplished!” he announces proudly, and puts his hands on his hips, smudging bright red paint on his trousers, and tries to ignore the eye-roll he _knows_ Amelia is sending his way even if he can’t see it. “Is M back yet?”

David, to his right, shakes his head. “Not yet.”

M: The Misfit King--the one responsible for bringing their band of nine together. None of the kids knew much about him. He was the oldest, a teenager, and didn’t talk much about himself. He wasn’t an orphan either. Really, only half of them were, but M was insistent that they all say that they were. It would make grown ups take pity on them, he had said, and let them off easy if they were caught. If they were lucky, they might even get free stuff out of it.

He was probably the coolest guy Jamie knew. M could rattle off a thousand stories off the top of his head, come up with the best games, and even smuggle in a record player _with_ the latest Boomsticks and Begonias album without even breaking a sweat. He’d even broken his arm in a shopping cart race against them down Dead Man’s Hill.

It took awhile for him to show up after that, but M had been quick to assure them all that the crash had been totally worth it.

“So what’s with the paint?” David asks, looking down at Jamie’s empty paint bucket in confusion.

“Huh? What do you mean what’s with the paint? Where’s _your_ paint?”

“What paint?”

“We’re supposed to be painting the town red tonight, remember?”

“We’re not actually painting anything!” Amelia cuts in. “That’s just a figure of speech, dummy!”

“You’re a figure of speech.”

“Says the only one with a paint bucket.”

Their argument continues. It carries, and as a hulking shadow blocks the lantern they’d set up a short ways away, it becomes very, very clear that the city streets aren’t quite as abandoned tonight as the Misfits thoughts.

“So you’re the ones who have been making trouble, are you?”

Jamie can’t see the man’s face. He sounds young, but looks like an adult. His arms are as big around as Jamie’s torso.

He doesn’t sound happy.

The kids share a look with one another and close ranks. Jamie drops the paint bucket and kicks it behind a shrub. It doesn’t help. He’s literally red-handed.

Behind the hulking figure of a man, someone cracks their knuckles.

*****

Over the past five years, Avery has grown to become a handsome, well-spoken young man. He’s well-known for his smile: a small, shy little thing that grows into a grin that could make the sun shine on a cloudy day.

And so, when he arrives for breakfast in the morning with a black eye and a bruised body, the castle staff practically falls to pieces. He brushes off their concerns and rolls his eyes, pointedly ignoring the way they poke and prod at him and assuring them all that he’s perfectly fine and that stairs are just a little more difficult than he thought after five hours of reading in the middle of the night.

Even if he _could_ tell them the truth, he didn’t dare. The kids had had to save his hide that night after his sneak attack on Muscles didn’t work. It wasn’t the first time they’d had to step in, but as always, he hoped it would be the last.

It just wasn’t right for a little kid to be stronger than a prince.

*****

There’s a new book in the library. It creaks when Avery opens it, the pages within clean and unmarred, black type on shockingly white paper. He can practically smell the ink.

It’s about a plucky explorer’s trip to the stars. Something for children, no doubt, or else penned by some hopeful dreamer looking to escape into the endless expanse above.

He can’t help but crack a smile, and he shuts the book, tucking it under his arm and making his way to the nook behind the back corner bookcase. How long has it been since he’s read something like this? The sky had fallen to the wayside as the years had passed, its vast, captivating mystery having become focused elsewhere.

It was a book in the mystery genre, a short novel picked up on a whim, that had captured the young prince’s interest in law. Not so much the clues and speculation or the “whodunnit” aspect of the story, for that was settled before the book was halfway over, but the courtroom drama that had taken up Act 2. Avery had been just about to give up on the book entirely when the prosecutor had given his opening speech before the judge, and just like that the humdrum murder mystery had transformed into the greatest game of tactics and persuasion that he had ever had the pleasure to read.

Not that space wasn’t interesting. It was! A nice little diversion to dip into from time to time, a delightful little treat of a journey to indulge in. But law? There was something _more_ to law. It had an “oomph” to it, a sense of power, a clever game of cat and mouse that required you to be ten steps ahead of your opponent.

It was the sort of profession he could see himself thriving in.

*****

“With all due respect, Father, can we not…” Avery’s shoulders slump and he heaves a heavy sigh, his porcelain mask of propriety cracking almost cleanly in two. “Can we just _not_ and say we did?”

His father gives him a look. It’s one Avery knows well: the I’m-Using-What-Meager-Backbone-I-Have, I’m-A-Parent stare. His head is inclined slightly forward. It makes the rebel in Avery want to ignore him all the more. “I don’t know why you’re so opposed to this. It’s your duty as prince of this kingdom. And stand up straight.”

“Because I _have plans!_ ” Avery insists as he adjusts his posture. “I even have the school picked out already! You’ve seen it, haven’t you? It’s one of the best law schools in the world!”

The vizier tsks, and Avery attempts to pin him to the spot with a stare that isn’t nearly as harsh or intimidating as he would like. “Your devotion to the pursuit of knowledge is admirable, Your Highness, but a prince’s primary duty is to be a _prince,_ not a common lawyer.”

Avery sniffs and turns his nose up. “If I wished to be a common lawyer, I would have gone to a lesser school.”

The king shakes his head and puts a hand to his forehead, feeling a headache coming on. “The ball will be on the eve of your twentieth birthday.”

“But--!”

“And you will have _fun,_ Avery.” The king peered out from behind his hand. “It isn’t that bad. Just go in with an open mind. Maybe you’ll even find someone you like all on your own.” Before Avery can open his mouth to argue, the king continues on, wearing his warmest smile for his son. “I’m more than willing to accept a marriage of love.”

The look on the vizier’s face stops Avery’s protestations before they can even begin. The man’s eyes are wide, his mouth hanging open. He looks as if he’s been struck. And though Avery doubts anything will come of it, if agreeing to this farce means seeing that look again… Well. He’ll just consider it due payment for his efforts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just as a heads up, I like to explore dark themes. Keep that in mind for the chapters here on out. Depending on what I write, I'll update tags accordingly.
> 
> Vanessa's coming.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think. If I need to post any warnings, please let me know that as well! I'm always up for concrit.


End file.
